Transform your meals from bland to grand with flavor boosters!

The Flavor Boosters

by Deborah Jeanne Sergeant

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It's hard for home cooks to achieve the triumvirate qualities of fast, inexpensive and tasty. Mixes and canned goods are fast and often cheap, but they can get boring and predictable. Adding just a little bit of a leftover or a common staple dresses up an ordinary dish for mere pennies, plus you don't have to go out and buy anything special. Here are a few flavor boosters to help your go-to convenience foods go glam.

Got Milk? Make any canned, condensed soup a cream soup by using it in place of water. Replace the water in a boxed or envelope mix with milk for a creamier side dish. Milk can also make cocoa mix creamier than when using water.

Reserve the water in which you cook vegetables. Allow it to cool and freeze it in ice cube trays. It adds nutrients and flavor to reconstituted canned soup.

Mushrooms, diced onion, sliced almonds and/or celery are delicious sauteed and added to rice pilaf, instant stuffing, or canned soup or stew. Also try a strip of crumbled bacon or cooked sausage to any of the above.

Save leftover cooked veggies to add to soup or envelopes of rice or noodle side dishes. If you add a little leftover meat, you'll have an easy and tasty casserole right from your stovetop.

Extra cream cheese? Try it instead of butter in boxed mashed potatoes for a decadent flavor and creamy texture. Or soften it and blend it into store-bought frosting.

Kick up the flavor of canned baked beans by draining off some of the liquid and adding a shot of barbecue sauce.

Blend a dollop of peanut butter into store bought chocolate or vanilla frosting. It's delicious on a chocolate cake. Stirred into canned chili, peanut butter adds an unexpected flavor that will keep them guessing.

A squirt of mustard makes boxed mac & cheese so much more interesting. It also makes the deli's potato salad edgier.

A sprinkle of oregano jazzes up frozen pizza.

Don't let that last banana spoil. If it's a bit soft, beat it into a cake mix, pancake mix, or cookie mix (reducing the other added liquid by 1/2 a cup).

Press sprinkles into refrigerated sugar cookie dough slices before you bake them. You'll also save time because you won't have to frost them.

Impart a bright flavor to your store-bought sugar cookie mix by working in a teaspoon of lemon juice.

"The Dollar Stretcher, Inc." does not assume responsibility for advice given. All advice should be weighed against your own abilities and circumstances and applied accordingly. It is up to the reader to determine if advice is safe and suitable for their own situation. This article may contain affiliate links. If you click on one of the affiliate links, The Dollar Stretcher could be compensated.